Painted tall and strong and bright
by BlackEyedGirl
Summary: Toby had the benefit of distance, of more freetime, of the romance of his fall from grace and academic redemption. But Andy is not sure that any of these things are what draws Molly to her father, spinning offkilter like a top, inexorably into his arms.


**Title:** Painted tall and strong and bright  
**Fandom:** The West Wing  
**Characters:** Andy&Molly (and other Wyatts, Zieglers, and Wyatt-Zieglers)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Genre:** Angst/Drama  
**Length:** 1,600 words  
**Disclaimer:** All belongs to Sorkin and Wells.  
**Spoilers:** Let's say for the whole show, although you'd be hard pushed to get any specific spoilers out of this from beyond S4.  
**Summary:** _"Toby had the benefit of distance, of more free-time, of the romance of his fall from grace and academic redemption. But Andy is not sure that any of these things are what draws Molly to her father, spinning off-kilter like a top, inexorably into his arms."_

**AN: **Companion piece to Songs of Sea and Sky

* * *

"I'm going to call Dad." 

Treacherously calm, Andy answered, "I thought you were going to watch this with me, Mol."

"I won't be long. Start without me, mom, I just want to ask him something."

"You say that now, sweetheart, but when you get going with your Dad you never just ask one question."

"It's for my homework."

"Can I help? I'm not exactly lacking experience in the political arena."

"It's not politics. I need help with my English homework"

And that was it: the higher calling, the one-upmanship Toby could always take advantage of and never needed to. Not with Molly. Her daughter who would lie on her bed and tell her father, haltingly sometimes, everything that had happened in her week. The things she wouldn't even tell Andy, the things she would never dream of telling her brother. And when Toby asked later, whether Molly had sorted things out with Julie, or was feeling any better about Journalism class, Andy would have to admit that she didn't know.

Toby had the benefit of distance, of more free-time, of the romance of his fall from grace and academic redemption. But Andy is not sure that any of these things are what draws Molly to her father, spinning off-kilter like a top, inexorably into his arms. When Molly describes herself, Andy does not see any traits which she would not equally claim as her own. She does not see Toby on the list.

Molly is bright, primary colours, like the pictures she painted when she was small. Not like her brother, all soft shades edging into deep shadow. Not like Toby either, and that is what makes Andy wonder. Toby is all shades of grey (except when he isn't, when he is black and white, ink on a page, _marry me again_), the backdrop to their daughter's splashes of light.

Andy doesn't know what she did. She knows exactly what she did. Her daughter loves her Daddy best, and will not forgive her mother for leaving him. When Andy goes on dates (rarely) and brings them home (rarer still), Molly disappears to her room with the telephone. She tries, _God_ but she tries, to make Molly understand that she loved Toby, that she had to do this. Molly nods like she understands, like she did not need it explained. And then smiles quickly, and walks away.

She wonders, when Molly does not seem to have boyfriends, or even boys she likes, whether this is the legacy she has left her baby-girl. A quick wit, all the strength she will ever require, and a standing belief that she does not need someone else. If perhaps this, and not Toby, is why she reads betrayal in her daughter's face when she reaches out to someone for comfort. If Molly will ever allow her to explain that loving is not weak, but that neither is it capable of mending. It was not that Toby was sad, it was that Andy could not make him happy. That his happiness was so separate from her, so tied to the highs and lows of Jed Bartlet and all that went along with that; that she had no part of it. And her babies would never have understood that it was not their fault that their father was miserable, that he punched walls and yelled into the high ceilings of the house she would not let him buy. She cannot explain that to Molly without slandering Toby, and she will not do that. Not because Molly would not believe her, and not because all the therapists advise against it, but because he does not deserve it. Because she loves him, and she loves her kids, and because she alone made the choice.

-

"Okay then," Andy said, smiling. "Go on and call your Dad. I'll be here when you're done."

"You can start..."

"I'll wait, it's okay."

"Thanks, mom," Molly throws over her shoulder, dashing up the stairs to grab the telephone.

Her father answers on the first ring.

He is the exception to every rule she has made herself about men and love and family. With him she allows herself to be what she will not anywhere else – such a little girl, curled up tight against him with her long legs folded underneath herself. When she was miserable, and he knew it, she would take her book and sit alongside him until he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

Molly doesn't do that with her mother. She adores her: her clever, confident mom who sits in Congressional Committees and holds her own with men who assume these positions of responsibility are a right and not a duty. Molly is so proud of her. Her mom hugs her with a great swoop of arms, pulling Molly tight enough against her that she can smell her perfume, dark like melting honey.

She doesn't want to hurt her mother; wants to fix the misapprehension that is never voiced – that Molly loves her father more. She cannot explain that it isn't true without voicing that her mother thinks it so. So when Mr Dean, in social studies, makes a snide remark about her mother's - her _mother's – _votes on social security, Molly stands up. Calls him a moron and a bigot and a tiny little man (not helped by the fact that she is a half a head taller than he) and all those other words her father will later tell her were a little generic. Walks, head held high, to the Principal's office to explain her actions. And if all she feels the need to say is that he insulted her mother, then maybe that's all that needs to be said. She loves her mother with something fierce and terrible – _you are what I will be_ – an awful protectiveness and a deep admiration. _I could never have done what you did._

Huck, she thinks with the patronising affection of sisterhood, does not realise that their mother is as much the cause of their broken family as their father. Huck feels guilty for loving Dad, feels somehow (she suspects he was told by someone) that he should look after mom. That leaving them was a choice and not something forced upon him. When Molly saw her father, he was always surprised, unduly pleased, with the smile on her face and the kiss she gives him every time. It hurts that mom doesn't understand that Molly loves her, but it hurts more to see her father's expression. When she has been thinking of him all week, storing up stories to tell him that she can't say over the phone. Molly greets her mother with a smile and a kiss each time too, but she will not pretend that she doesn't miss dad. Not getting back together was a choice, and Molly respects that, but it was her _mother's_ choice. _I will love him, because you don't, or because you can't. And because I can, and I do. _

Mom goes out every day into the world and fights battles. She is Molly's inspiration. They are neither of them geniuses, poets, dreamers; not like her father, not like her brother. Molly doesn't say this in case Mom thinks it's an insult, in case Huck thinks it so as well. But she believes it anyway, and does not think it is a slur against any of them. Her mother is extraordinary in the ordinary way, and that is all Molly wants for herself. When Molly decides that she will be a lawyer, she sees her own face superimposed over Mom's, tall and strong and bright against a dark world. Her mother had not gone back to her husband because she thought her constituents needed her more, because she knew that her babies would need her more. Molly goes to her Dad because he needs her more, and the Wyatt girls go where they are needed.

"Mom?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"You still awake?"

"Molly..." Andy drawled back, amused. "I'm talking to you."

"Yeah. I was just wondering if you still want to watch the movie? I'll make coffee?"

"Sure, honey. You have a good chat with your Dad?"

"Yeah. I mean, I think so. He's... not really happy."

Andy smiled, touching her daughter's curls, "You make him happy, sweetheart. You always have."

"I just wish I could..."

"Yeah, I know. Little steps, though, okay? Maybe we'll get him to come visit us here next time? New York's always been bad for him."

"I just..." Molly's hands twisted in the air in front of her, an attempt at reshaping the world. Andy took them gently, watched the flush on her daughter's cheek, her shining determination to fix what would always be broken. She pulled her errant girl against her shoulder and stroked the curls away from her face, now close enough to see the tear-tracks. He wouldn't have noticed; they are both the kind of woman who can cry in near-silence.

Molly leans forward now, and Andy bends down to follow her; hair streaking bright colour against pale cheeks. "I love you," Molly whispers, like a secret.

"I know, baby," Andy answers, as though she hadn't. "I love you too."

"But I need to..."

"I know, sweetheart. I know, I know." Molly would learn, or she wouldn't. Keep painting herself, in hope and tears, over the grey parts in the life that had been left to her father. As Andy had tried, years ago, before those fading patches had spread so far and deep, before they had encroached into the very parts that made her fall for him hard and fast. Andy's colour had washed off him with every fresh rain; she wasn't sure what would happen to Molly's. Part of her wanted Molly to learn now what had happened then, to learn and stop trying. The rest, the larger part, that loved him still, that loved Molly for everything but for this trying most of all – this part hoped that she would never learn how to stop.

* * *

FIN: Comments would be lovely 


End file.
